HP Divides U.S. Geo Into Three To Streamline Sales, Channel Organizations

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Hewlett-Packard confirmed channel reports that the company has reorganized its U.S. sales force into three separate geographies instead of a single geography in a move to streamline its sales and channel activities.

Terry Richardson, vice president and general manager of the U.S. channel sales organization within HP's Enterprise Group, told CRN that starting on May 1, HP broke up its U.S. sales and channel organization into three separate organizations, and in the process simplified what had been a complex sales operation.

Technically, there are actually four organizations in the U.S., including three separate geographies as well as a Federal team, Richardson said.

Prior to the reorganization, HP's Enterprise Group had server sales teams for its x86 and its Mission Critical servers, as well as sales teams for storage, networking and services, each of which had their own strategies, Richardson said.

"We wanted to collapse those disparate sales models," he said.

Now, instead of multiple executives managing product teams across the country, a single executive at the vice president and general manager level now heads all sales activities within an entire one-third of the U.S., Richardson said.

Each of those territories also has a channel director who works hand in hand with the sales executives, he said.

The channel directors in the three U.S. geographies report to Richardson, while the sales vice presidents report to Robert Vrij, Americas senior vice president. Vrij left Alcatel to join HP in March to take over for Rich Geraffo, who in October left HP to become senior vice president for Oracle's worldwide alliances and channels.

The reorganization appears to be part of HP CEO Meg Whitman's plan to provide a faster decision-making process for the company, said Rich Baldwin, CIO and chief strategy officer at Nth Generation Computing, a San Diego-based solution provider and HP partner.

Historically, local decisions had to go all the way to Executive Vice President of HP's Enterprise Group Bill Veghte, but now are handled at the regional level, Baldwin said.

"In the past, we almost needed to go to God to break the rules," he said. "Now we just need to go to the angels. And we know all the Western regional people very well."

Baldwin said he is seeing HP flattening its district manager ranks as well.

XChange Solution Provider 2015 is finally upon us and the timing couldn't be better. The premier channel event is happening March 1-3 in Dallas, bringing together 225 solution provider decision makers from across North America. CRN is at the event to provide news, analysis and a firsthand take from partners.